Tag: UFC 130

As promised, Yoshiro Akiyama has already completed his transformation to 170 pounds, and besides looking a little gaunt in the face, it’s safe to say that he has taken this “Sexyama” thing to a whole ‘notha level. I mean, first the music video and now this? You are making it increasingly difficult for the rest of the male population to get laid, Mr. Akiyama.

Below, we have Akiyama’s weigh in photo leading into his UFC debut match against Alan Belcher as a basis for comparison, courtesy of mmajunkie.com.

File this one under “least surprising info of the day.” Following back-to-back losses to Brian Stann and Demian Maia at UFC 130 and 136, repectively, word has it that Jorge Santiago has been released by the UFC for the second time. The American Top Team standout’s original run took place back in 2006, where he scored a quick knockout over the now deceased Justin Levens before ending up on the highlight reels of Chris Leben and Alan Belcher for all eternity.

You had to see this one coming. Three weeks out from his unanimous decision defeat to Tim Boetsch at UFC 130, the UFC has decided to part ways with TUF 3 winner Kendall Grove. After defeating Ed Herman to win The Ultimate Fighter 3 back in 2006, Grove has gone 6-6 in the UFC, including losses to Patrick Cote, Mark Munoz and Demian Maia. Aside from Ed Herman, the only fighter that Kendall Grove holds a win over who is still fighting in the UFC is Alan Belcher, who he defeated by D’Arce choke back at UFC 69 in April of 2007.

Now that we’re halfway through a six-week stretch featuring a UFC or Strikeforce event every weekend, it might be time to take a deep breath, drag out a semi-retired recurring feature, and assign some totally meaningless scores to some of the notable trends and fighters we’ve seen lately. Who’s up, who’s down, and by how much? Well…

The UFC heavyweight division+113
Some have already labeled Shane Carwin’s loss at UFC 131 the “end of an era” for gargantuan heavyweights. (Didn’t last long, did it?) At the top of the division, we’re left with two guys who are smaller, faster, and better-conditioned than their predecessors; Velasquez vs. Dos Santos could be an all-time classic. Meanwhile, prospects like Travis Browne and Dave Herman continue to add depth at 265.

Cageside monitors-98
Nope, the judging in this sport still sucks, and the problem doesn’t appear to be technological. When you have shit for brains, every angle is a bad angle.

(We would have also accepted ‘extreme-constipation’. Photo courtesy of HeavyMMA.)

Breaking away from his usual “fat guy who can throw down” persona, Roy Nelson just looked like your garden-variety fat guy last weekend at UFC 130, wheezing through three rounds, too exhausted to do anything besides absorb blows from Frank Mir. Was it a sign that Roy should finally hook up with a nutritionist and get his BMI in order?

The obvious answer is yes, definitely. Just because you can drag around a barrel of adipose tissue around your midsection and still compete at the highest levels of MMA doesn’t make it a good idea. Nelson is literally weighing himself down in the Octagon, and putting himself at a profound competitive disadvantage; even most 205-pounders in the UFC outsize Nelson at this point. But according to a new report, there was another factor in play on Saturday that made a victory for Big Country even less likely:

(Rear-naked chokes exist in a surplus in some markets, causing their value to be diluted, but their rarity at UFC 130 inflated their value to $70,000 apiece. See, I told you economics could be fun! Photo courtesy of Heavy.com.)

Look, I was all for sweeping UFC 130 under the rug and never mentioning it again, but since ReX has shamed me into doing this, it’s time to look back at Saturday’s big winners (and big, big losers) and see if we can devise some future matchups for these guys that will actually produce interesting fights. Make it happen, tiny atheist.

Quinton Jackson:Dana White seems dead-set on giving Rampage a title shot if his hand is healthy enough to accept it. Ugh, terrible. Why the UFC isn’t interested in promoting the hottest rivalry in the sport is anybody’s guess. (And don’t give me that bullshit about “timing”; it’s more likely related to White’s personal feelings about Rashad Evans.) In a perfect world, Rampage sits out for a few months and faces the winner of Shogun vs. Forrest at UFC 134 in Rio. With losses to both on his record, I don’t think motivation would be an issue.

Matt Hamill: Sure, on paper Hamill was coming into the fight against Rampage with a five-fight win streak — but considering that the most impressive victory in that streak (by far!) was his knockout of Mark Munoz, you have to wonder where the Hammer really sits in the light-heavyweight pecking order. My first thought was that Hamill should face the resurgent Vladimir Matyushenko next — but Vlad already has a date in August. So give him the winner of Kyle Kingsbury vs. Fabio Maldonado at this Saturday’s TUF 13 Finale. Either Hamill rebounds, or a rising prospect gets a big-name notch on their belt. Seems win-win to me.

I’ve worked for several major corporations who mandated that their employees sit through mind-numbing lectures and videos detailing what comments and suggestive behavior constitute sexual harassment. There’s a thin line between what are regarded as harmless remarks like, “I like your dress,” or, “Nice haircut,” and what’s considered lewd.

I remember one video in particular that stands out. According to the, “sexual harassment expert” in the film, sexually suggestive comments and innuendos don’t become harassment until a set boundary between the two parties has been crossed. For example, when a woman tells a man that she doesn’t appreciate him making remarks about how her jeans fit or what he’d like to do to her, it becomes harassment when he makes them again.

If you look back at Quinton Jackson’s history of dry-humping and sniffing the behinds of female reporters, it’s not surprising that he told MMA Heat’s Karyn Bryant following his UFC 130 win over Matt Hamill Saturday night that he wanted to “motorboat” her and that she better get away from him before he “humps” her like he has other women interviewers like our own Heather Nichols.

(Photo courtesy of MMAFighting.com. “Roy Nelson is exhausted” gif placed after the jump by popular demand. But if you move your head from side to side while looking at this picture, it’s basically the same thing.)

Yeah, we know what we said we said about last night’s show, but despite the underwhelming co-main events there was a fair amount of action on the card (yes, even from those two fights). Join us after the jump then get something to eat while the page loads.